Author: James Thomas, October 10 2016 - In a world that is working to ensure health for all, what does progress look like? It might look like people from different nations sitting in tight circles, leaning in to hear each talk about their successes, failures, and challenges in strengthening their country health information system (HIS). In those stories, each listener can gain insights to apply in their own country. And bit by bit, year by year, their country can move towards a system that allows them to see data that describe the needs of their population, and whether health services are addressing those needs.

Recognizing that we learn best when listening to someone who has wrestled with similar challenges, the planners constructed the meeting around interactions among country representatives. A prominent theme in the conversations was the importance of the human factor in data systems. People discussed, for example, how initiatives to strengthen competition in the internet provider market could increase internet connectivity in rural areas and reduce costs. They swapped experiences with different governance structures for HIS, with developing national HIS strategies, and with mobilizing the political will needed to implement them. Participants recognized that while electronic systems are important, the thinking about public health objectives and strategies are paramount. People and planning are the horse, and informatics is the cart.

Eventually, each country identified and shared its top three actions to strengthen its HIS, incorporating what they learned around those conversation circles. Example priorities included finalizing HIS strategies, and empowering HIS units to develop and scale up digital HIS platforms. Through these discussions, participants identified connections between needs and potential resources.

On the final day, more than 60 participants traveled to see first-hand how Bangladesh is implementing tablet-based data collection systems by community-based health workers in health service facilities. The heat was sweltering but the group seemed not to notice as they actively exchanged ideas and reactions to watching a health systems strengthening project in action. The conference was widely considered to be a success: in large part because of those circles of ideas, stories of short- and long-term progress, shared challenges, and renewed determination to make things happen.

A video, premiered at the Health Data Collaborative meeting in Dhaka, Bangladesh on April 27 2016, tells the story of the RHIS Initiatives' introduction of mobile data collection for population registries conducted in rural areas in Bangladesh. Click here to view.

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Dr. James Thomas has more than 35 years of experience working in the field of public health. He earned his doctoral degree in epidemiology from UCLA. Over the course of his career, Dr. Thomas has been a nutritionist, program implementer, professor, researcher, technical advisor, manager, policy advisor, and founder of two nonprofit organizations. He has lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kenya, and has worked in more than two dozen countries of Africa and Asia. As a professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina, his principal interests are in the social epidemiology of HIV/AIDS, and public health ethics and human rights. In addition to his scholarly articles, he was an editor and author of a textbook on epidemiologic methods in the study of infectious diseases, and principal author of the American Public Health Association’s Code of Ethics. As Director of the USAID funded MEASURE Evaluation Project, Dr.